Dan Bigham, the Team GB Olympic track rider who also works for Ineos Grenadiers, has revealed he is leaving the team almost immediately. The aerodynamics expert has also echoed some of the criticisms of the new management at Ineos Grenadiers that Geraint Thomas recently made.
During the Tour de France, Thomas suggested his role had become less focused and he believed the new management structure at the team was based on consensus rather than a clearly defined vision.
And now Bigham (32), like Thomas (38), has said the team has lost its direction, and was not achieving its potential, under the current management regime compared to when Dave Brailsford was the clear team boss.
After Rod Ellingworth exited his post as deputy team principal last year, Scott Drawer became performance director; one of several management changes. Last month eyebrows were raised when director of racing, Steve Cummings, was left at home during the Tour de France.
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Bigham confirmed, in an interview with The Telegraph, he was leaving Ineos Grenadiers after he competed in the British team pursuit line-up at the OIympics. However, he insisted his departure was not about any clash with Drawer.
“It’s more just how I see performance," he said. "How I want to do performance is not particularly aligned with how Ineos wanted to go about it. I wanted more autonomy, more ability to action my ideas. And I wasn’t really getting that at Ineos.
“I feel that a lot of performance we’re leaving on the table and that frustrates me because it’s clear as day we should be doing things a lot better. Let’s be honest, Ineos are not where they want to be, not where they need to be and the gap is not small.”
Bigham was world champion in the team pursuit with Great Britain two years ago and won the individual pursuit at the Europeans this year. However, he said while he was offered support by the team as be built towards the Olympics, that only amounted to three months unpaid leave.
“They always said they’d support me for the Olympics and it got to about February and I’m like, ‘guys, I’ve been knocking on the door. What is the support?’” Bigham said.
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“Scott came back and said, ‘our offer is you can take three months off as unpaid leave from May through to the Games’ which was, I guess, okay in a way. It put me on a UK Sport APA and I can arguably say I’m a professional athlete, which is a nice box to tick.
“But at the same time it didn’t feel like a great amount of support. And with everything else building as frustration within the team, it just felt if that’s the way they want to approach it then with everything else, my frustrations, I would hand in my notice.”
In the absence of Brailsford from Ineos Grenadiers, especially as Ineos has moved into other sports - including as a major stakeholder in Manchester United - Bigham said the team lacked a clear boss and clear direction, amid the distractions of the other sports interests.
“Dave had a very clear vision and a way of actioning it and a plan in his head. Maybe to some degree maybe that’s been lacking,” Bigham said. “We know what it takes to win but how do you get there? What are the processes? That’s the bit lacking clarity.
"That’s the bit frustrating me as well because I feel like I’ve got a very clear idea on the energy outside equation, the drag and where we need to go and we were not committing to some of the things I felt could bring some fairly significant performance.”
Earlier this season, 2018 Tour winner, Thomas, said Ineos Grenadiers had undergone management changes in the post-Brailsford era that he found "challenging".
“Before, it was a lot more straightforward with Dave at the top. There was clarity with everything. There was a simple process whereas now it’s got a lot more complicated," he told William Fortheringham in The Guardian.
“It’s like a coalition government. You need a majority. Even if you didn’t agree with stuff (under Brailsford) at least there was a clear ‘boom, boom, boom’ – that’s it, move on – rather than this grey area.”
And as he rode the Tour, it was clear Thomas felt his role was one well below what he could achieve, something that brought about a sense of drift, despite finishing 2nd in the Giro just last year and holding the race lead until the penultimate stage.
“In the past, I’ve come here and known exactly where I’m at and there’s been a minimum standard every day,” he said during the Tour. “I can still do that, meet minimum expectation, but how I feel doing it, is just so up and down at the minute.”
